The “Good Ole Days” are gone, or are they?

I hear this all the time, and it may be me getting old, but I also catch myself saying it too often as well. In fact just the other day I picked up a glossy quarterly magazine put out by our local chamber. This is a chamber that has only about half as many members as it did during the later

Nineties. I mused to myself, that maybe instead of putting out such a magazine, perhaps they would be better off focusing on member benefits and building their member base.

In the “good ole’ days”, the events this chamber put on (Chairman’s Coffee Clubs and After Hours) were the business events to be at, well attended and full of influential business people networking and getting business done. Now however, the events are poorly attended and a shadow of the former events. Obviously, the “good ole’ days” are gone, right?

Hmmm, let’s define the “good ole’ days”. I think most of us have a time in our life that we look back upon fondly, and feel that they were the “good ole’ days”. Yep, by that definition, the “good ole’ days” are gone. Networking has changed oh so much in the last 15 years.

“Change is the only constant in life.” ~Heraclitus

As I flipped through the glossy quarterly magazine I continued to grumble, then I saw an ad for their new MyChamberApp. My initial response, “Why are they spending on something like this?” then it hit me. In order to stay relevant in a world where the number of Facebook page fans you have and how many people you are connected to on LinkedIn certainly opens more opportunities than a Chamber event used to, organizations and businesses have to change to stay relevant.
It is important to realize that the potential for “good ole’ days” always exist. Don’t lament that they are gone, make new “good ole’ days” right here and now.